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Neighbor Girl Across Street Is Causing too Much Drama With My Daughter

I thought I'd ask a little advice. I have an almost 10 year old daughter. We have a couple of her schoolmates that live close by (one across the street, one around the corner. ) My daughter is an only child so she loves to play with the neighbors when I don't arrange for other kids to come over. My duaghter is a total extrovert and love the company of other kids.

The neighbor girl across the street "Erika" is more introverted, but my duaghter always wants to play with her (probably because she's close by). Lately "Erika" is saying things like "I like "Susan" better than you (susan lives around the corner) and, "Your Nintendo Sucks", and when they are walking home from the bus stop, my daughter will strike up and conversation and "Erika" will run off. There's also a lot of drama as to who sits by who on the bus - my daughter feels left out most of the time. "Erika" is driving all of us nuts...she is passive aggressive and my daughter is an easy target...honestly "Erika" has few other friends aside from "Susan"....she's a little antisocial. I keep telling my daughter she's better off without her.

I told my daughter she shouldn't play with the "Erika" anymore. She has plenty of other friends at school that don't live in our immediate neighborhood. The problem is that my daughter still wants to play with her...again, it's probably because she the closest. She also doesn't want to sit alone on the bus.

It's the age!!! We have had similar drama the past two years with both of my girls and other girls in the sub, it's never the same ones, kind of a rotating, everyone has taken a hormonal crack at stepping into the mean girl role. The most I have gotten into the drama is helping them identify the traits of what a good friend should be and given them the tools to not take some of this hormonal tween crap too seriously!

At 10 years old, I wasn't telling my son who he could and could not be friends with anymore. Even if you are tired of hearing about the drama, there are passive-aggressive people in real life, and personally I think you should be guiding your daughter on how to deal with people like that instead of just telling her not to be friends with Erika anymore.

Keep in mind that this might also just be "after school Erika" and "in school Erika" might be much more polite and cooperative-- since teachers and anti-bullying committees are definitely watching. Girls are so freaking good and putting on different personas based on where they are and who they're with.

DD2 has a classmate at school who is full of drama. DD2 just stands by and picks her up when she is down. Too exhausting, she says. Just yesterday DD2 came home to say her classmate was crying because of these two girls she wanted to befriend but only with her and not with each other. She on to howl how she doesn't have any friends. DD2 said she looked over at her and did not say a thing. DD2 has been this girl's friend since 1st grade. They are in 4th now.

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